Detailing my attempt to write 1,000,000 words in 2013 - that's an average of 2,740 a day.

Friday, 14 June 2013

June 14th – 467,476.

Today I think I just broke my speed record. At 11:25 I
checked my word count and realised I needed another 1200 words to hit the
target for the day. It is now 11:59, some 34 minutes later and I’ve written
1600 words in that time, and indeed in the last couple of minutes I’ve updated
my spreadsheet metronome and opened this document to start work on this blog
entry, so more like 32 minutes to write 1600 words. That’s a speed of 3,000
words an hour.

Remember I always say, words written and good words don’t
always correlate, and words written on first draft don’t always make it through
to the final published version, but I suspect the scene I’ve just written will
stay. It highlights a very important stage in the character development for my
heroine and I can’t see the book working without it. That is of course, not to
say that once the editors get hold of it, it won’t get torn to shreds and
rewritten – but that’s an occupation hazard for every scene in every book, hopefully
by every author.

So, today’s word count total is 3,217 words, and I’m happy
to close in on the 470k mark and it would appear that despite missing 2 days
out of the last 20, I’ve actually managed to get close on 60,000 words written
since my holiday. Of course in 16 days’ time we’re hitting the half-way point through
the year, and thus through this challenge, so I need to get that 32,524 words
written to get me past the half-way point of the challenge and at the moment
that seems doable.

About Me

Born in 1956 in the East Anglian Fens in England, he moved to Nottingham to study for his business degree. In line with the current myth of the time he met, courted and married a local girl and they have now been married for thirty years. They still live within ten miles of Nottingham and have two adult children and have just become grandparents for the first time! Following a career in software development and IT management, David was forced to give up work in 2005 to look after both his wife and daughter, both of whom were suffering from different life threatening illnesses. To fill the time and take his mind off of the domestic and financial issues, David eventually turned to his love of both photography and writing. Seven Sisters was the first product of the latter and has been followed by a prodigious number of works.